


Preferences

by myth_taken



Series: Tara is Alive, Well, and in Love with Fred Burkle [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 16:43:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11040159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myth_taken/pseuds/myth_taken
Summary: Tara arrived in the dead of night, tear tracks on her face, carrying a duffel bag full of everything she cared about.--Tara leaves Willow and goes to L. A. There, she meets human ray of sunshine Fred Burkle. Buffyverse Femslash Week day 2: canon divergence.





	Preferences

**Author's Note:**

> I almost didn't get the chance to finish this, but here it is, a mere two hours before the end of day 2.

Tara arrived in the dead of night, tear tracks on her face, carrying a duffel bag full of everything she cared about. She pushed open the door of an old hotel, not sure what she’d find. Buffy had said she’d call ahead, but Tara was still walking into a building full of strangers and asking them to take her in.

What she found was a sleeping baby and a woman sitting on a nearby couch, a textbook resting on her lap. When Tara stepped closer, the woman set the textbook aside and jumped up.

“Hi! You must be Tara.” She held out her hand. “I’m Fred.”

Tara nodded. It was rude not to speak, but Tara’s stutter would stop her if she tried. She had spent too much of her strength.

“Angel was going to wait for you, but he’s not good with the feelings stuff,” Fred explained. “I mean, I’m not, either, but Angel’s really not great with it. And anyway, he got called on a job, so it’s a good thing he didn’t have to wait for you.”

Tara tried a little smile. It didn’t work very well.

“Do you want anything?” Fred asked. “We have food and stuff.”

Tara shook her head. “Wh- whose baby is that?” she asked.

Fred glanced back at the cradle. “He’s Angel’s.” Looking back at Tara, she explained, “It’s kind of a long story. His name is Connor. You can say hi to him if you like, but you have to be careful, because he’s asleep.”

“I- I used to take care of my s- sister,” Tara said. She walked to the crib and leaned over it. Connor was sucking his tiny thumb. “He- he looks healthy.”

Fred joined her at the crib. “He’s pretty new. We take care of him.” She looked to Tara. “Angel and I made up a room for you, if you want it. We didn’t have time to get out the fancy soap, but--”

“That sounds great,” Tara said. “Thank you.”

“I know what it’s like to have to get out,” Fred said. “Of course, for me, it was a demon dimension where they kept humans as livestock, so it’s not quite the same comparison.”

“Sounds like my family,” Tara joked.

“I’m sorry,” Fred said. 

“I got out,” Tara said. “Just like you did.”

“I had help,” Fred admitted. “Come on, I’ll show you where to go.” She led Tara up the stairs. “Our rooms are over here,” she said, pointing to a hallway. “We put you in a different hall, but not too far away in case you want to talk to us or something. It’s just me and Angel and Charles and Wes who live here. Cordelia’s gone away with her prophecy demon boyfriend, but she lives with a very nice ghost in an apartment a few blocks down.” She stopped at a door. Room 104. “Anyway, I’m babbling, and you need your sleep.” 

Tara nodded and gave Fred the best smile she could, given the circumstances. “Th- thank you,” she said.

Fred smiled. “No problem! Anything for a friend of a friend of a friend.”

“Good night, Fred.”

“Good night, Tara.”

Tara slipped into the hotel room, closing the door behind her. She barely bothered to change into her pajamas before she curled up in bed and fell asleep, too tired to spend even more time worrying about Willow.

The next day, she met more of the Angel Investigations crew. Cordelia was off that day, apparently, but Willow had told Tara about Cordelia, and no matter how hard she tried, Tara couldn’t erase the memory of her own giggle at the way Willow’s voice dropped when she said, “Cordelia was bad news.” Fred was still Tara’s favorite, but Wesley wasn’t nearly as bad as Willow and Giles had made him sound, and the others were quite nice. 

And, of course, there was a baby, and Tara loved taking care of kids. She had dreamed of raising kids with Willow. 

After a few more days, Tara got used to the rhythm of Angel Investigations. She started helping out on cases; it turned out that her knowledge of magic was infinitely helpful, even if every spell she did reminded her of Willow.

A week after her arrival, Tara got a call from Buffy. 

“Willow’s quit her magic.”

“I can’t come back,” Tara said. “I can’t-- I can’t trust her yet. Besides, I think I’m of more use here.”

“We don’t need you to come back,” Buffy’s voice told her. “I just thought you should know. You helped. You leaving was pretty near rock bottom for her.”

“But she’s climbing out?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “She’s climbing out.”

Tara set down the phone and went back to her case. 

After a while, Tara realized she enjoyed working with Angel Investigations. She dropped out of UC Sunnydale for the rest of the semester, and put in an application to transfer to UCLA. She stopped worrying so much about Willow, especially as Buffy’s calls came less frequently and with better news: “She’s stopped shaking so much,” or, “She’s been able to come to the magic shop without any trouble.” A big part of Tara still loved Willow, but a bigger part of her was moving on. 

One day, Tara was gathering ingredients for a simple spell, the demon-finding one that she had sabotaged with Willow, and Fred sat next to her and started asking questions.

“What do those do?” she asked. “What makes them go together?”

Tara answered to the best of her ability, explaining the individual properties of each ingredient.

“It sounds a lot like chemistry,” Fred said. “Can I watch?”

“Just-- don’t talk until I’m done,” Tara said. “I don’t want to mess up the balance or anything.”

Fred nodded, leaning in to watch. After Tara had finished the spell and written down the location of the demons they had been looking for, Fred exploded into speech. “Wow. What caused that? I guess magic is like the supernatural version of science, with rules and stuff. I have to rethink everything I know about physics.”

Tara smiled. “I can teach you some, if you like. Just be careful with it.”

Fred nodded. “I’m very careful. I have to be, with the stuff they used to give me in chem lab.”

A moment passed.

“Shouldn’t we go update Wesley on the demon situation?” Tara asked.

“Yeah,” Fred agreed, standing up. 

They walked together to Wesley’s office, where Fred entered first, Tara trailing behind. 

“Wes? Tara found the demon.”

“I think so,” Tara said, clutching the map. “There are a lot of demons in L. A.”

“Excellent,” Wesley said, taking the map from Tara, but looking at Fred the whole time. “I’ll send Gunn out right away.”

Tara and Fred nodded and left.

Once they were out of Wesley’s earshot, Tara told Fred, “I think Wesley likes you.”

“Me?” Fred asked. “In a romance way?”

Tara nodded.

“Oh, no,” Fred said. “How can you tell?”

“He was looking at you when I gave him the paper,” Tara said. “It’s pretty obvious, but you always have too much on your mind to notice things.”

“That’s true,” Fred said. “I think about a lot of things. But, Tara, what do I say to Wesley?”

“I don’t think you have to say anything,” Tara said. “I don’t know, though. People don’t usually have crushes on me.”

“That’s really sad,” Fred said. “You have a nice smile.”

Tara smiled her nice smile. “I haven’t really-- I didn’t meet a lot of people until college.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I like meeting people. I spent five years with no people,” Fred explained. “It was awful.”

“You wouldn’t like the people I grew up with,” Tara said. 

Fred reached out and took Tara’s hand. She squeezed once and let go. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s over now,” Tara said. “I told them to leave me alone.”

The next day, Fred asked Tara to dinner.

“Not in a gay way,” she clarified. “I mean, I know you’re gay, but I’m not gay. Except for that one time in high school, and, well, she was really cute. But anyway, I just want to have a good time with a gal pal, and from the way you were talking yesterday, I think the world owes you a good time. And there’s this taco truck I’ve been dying to check out, but it’s depressing to go alone, because then I start thinking, and that doesn’t lead anywhere good.”

Tara agreed, and so she found herself sitting across from Fred at a picnic table at dusk, surrounded by tiny little lights. Fred ate at least three times as much as Tara, but it was okay, because Tara ate far more slowly, and so they were finishing their meals at about the same time.

“I think, as your new lesbian friend, I have to ask,” Tara said.

Fred looked up from her food. “Ask what?”

“What happened in high school? That one time?”

Fred blushed. “Oh, there was a girl, and her hair was just really, really nice, and her face was shaped really well, and I just thought she was very pretty, and then it turned out she thought I was pretty, too, and I kissed her a few times.”

“But you weren’t gay?”

“Well, after that, I kissed a bunch of boys, and I liked that the same as the girl, and I never thought of another girl that way. Although, you know, Cordelia makes a very nice princess.”

“You can like both,” Tara said. “I’m pretty sure you can like both.”

Fred’s eyes grew wide. “You  _ can _ ?”

Tara nodded.

“Oh, that’s wonderful! I’ve always felt bad preferring one over the other. I mean, girls are good, too, and they put so much  _ effort _ into it. I don’t think Wesley’s even shaved in a week. And, you know, when I said I never thought of another girl that way, that was a little bit of a lie. I just never kissed another girl after that.”

Tara laughed. 

“This is fascinating,” Fred said. “I’m going to have to test this. I don’t know where to find a girl to kiss, though. I mean, it’s not like I can just walk up to somebody and ask them to kiss me.”

“If-- I mean-- you can kiss me,” Tara said. “If you want. I don’t-- I don’t want to date, or anything, because I’m still attached to Willow in my head, and you should date someone who likes you with all of their head, but-- I did this too when I went to college. It’s good to experiment.”

Fred looked around. They weren’t in a crowded space, exactly, but there were a few people scattered around. “Can we go someplace else?” she whispered.

Tara nodded and stood, carrying her empty paper plate to the nearest trash can. Fred followed suit. The two walked together to a little area behind a tree.

“This is very nice,” Fred said. “People aren’t going to see us here, and it’s a pretty tree, isn’t it?”

Tara looked up. It was a nice tree. 

“I don’t really know how to do this,” Fred confessed. “I mean, usually when you kiss people, you don’t plan it out with them before.”

“Willow and I did,” Tara said. “She was worried about it. She had never kissed a girl either.”

“Oh, okay,” Fred said. She took a deep breath. “It’s for science, really. I have a hypothesis, and now I have to test it.”

“Just-- close your eyes,” Tara said.

Fred did, and Tara put her hands on Fred’s waist, pulled her closer, and gave her a gentle kiss. When she pulled away, Fred’s eyes were wide open.

“That was nice,” she said.

Tara just grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had to finish this pretty fast; it's not as long as it should be. Therefore, some good characterization was sacrificed in the name of moving the plot along. I have this AU in my head; in it, Tara and Fred start dating, and Willow shows up in season 4 to provide support for the spell to re-ensoul Angel or something (I haven't thought it through that well), and she and Tara and Fred wind up all dating each other due to obvious lesbian subtext between Willow and Fred as well as the fact that Tara and Fred are just the kindest people in the entire Buffyverse and therefore need to spend a lot of time together, but also that Tara and Willow are really good together.


End file.
